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I've switched donnel and vaike as you advised. Yeah I wasn't planning to use noire/yarne as they seem kind of lackluster compared to the others. I'm avoiding Brady out of personal preference and the fact that I plan to use Lissa and Miriel in my main team, and Brady would feel redundant (but maybe I'm wrong).Is Morgan good as a Manakete? Also would there be a better alternative than Gregor for Owain's father? Avatar (Male)/Virion/Stahl/Vaike/Kellam/Libra seem like the options.

Top Voted Answer

Same reasoning as above applies to Gaius and Cherche. Gerome can't reclass to Dark Flier, so Gaius' ability to grant access to it like Donnel and MU is lost. I personally preferred pairing him with Tharja, giving access to a Noire that can potentially have Galeforce, Lethality and Lifetaker all at once. As well, Noire having an Archer Parent when she starts as an archer already seems a bit redundant to me.

Answers

Donnel is generally best at giving a female child access to Dark Rider from a parent that cannot get it naturally (such as Sully). Wasting the access across two characters is something that should be avoided, as both the Avatar and Donnel are one of the few characters that get access to both Armsthrift and Galeforce. Switching around Donnel and Vaike is highly recommended due to giving Kjelle and Morgan access to both of the relevant abilities while not wasting anything. Similarly, Gregor is a bit wasted on Lissa, though she doesn't normally get access to Armsthrift otherwise. She's still getting a good enough pairing that it's fine enough as it is.

Other than that nothing is too out there. Noire is going to be rather meh, as you have to marry Tharja to one of the more relevant males (either a male Avatar, Donnel, or Gregor) before Noire becomes anything other than a "filler" character. The same goes for Panne, who requires that you basically spoon-feed Yarne to get him with good abilities.

As a more side note, I tend to prefer the MC as male, as you get *radically* better choices for children parents (the MC is *always* the best parent, and is one of the two males that gives a guaranteed child). This also lets you get a Morgan with Manakete, which is a pretty sweet job to end up in